America By Phone

I grew up just one block in from Portland’s own 82nd avenue, the same drag of pavement they tried to rename “The Avenue of Roses” to mask the true images it evokes: used car lots, fast food joints, dingy strip clubs and Chinese restaurants. It gave me an intense desire to expand my horizons, if you know what I mean.

82nd is in fact the fastest way to get to PDX Airport, but the only plane trip I’ve ever taken was to Disney Land in eighth grade. In high school I satiated my traveling itch by hitching rides to Montana with my best friend. We swam in the clear water of Flat Head Lake but, other than her relatives, I never met any of the local Montanans. When I was sixteen I lived on my own in Seattle for five weeks during a dance intensive at Cornish College, but the friends I made there were all liberal young girls like myself. I figured I needed to get out of the Pacific North West to experience difference.

I followed the Willamette river south for college, physically attending University of Oregon while my brain fantasized about traveling Route 66. I studied philosophy in a naive attempt to learn about the East Coast through pragmatists like John Dewey. Maybe I should have thought more about gaining tools to get a job so I could afford to travel to the East Coast. After graduation, the only thing I was qualified for was a call center job an old friend from high school connected me with. She said the pay was decent so I couldn’t say no. I didn’t realize that phone was a ticket to my long awaited journey around the country.

You’d be surprised how emboldened people become when talking to a customer service representative on the phone. After a few weeks of work I found that I was just human enough in the caller’s mind that they knew I was listening to them, and just mechanical enough that they ignored the possibility of my emotive capabilities. With master training in the art of disguising my own location, people form different states assumed that I had the same background set of ideas as them. I had callers from Louisiana vocalize their racism and ask me to back them up; I had people from New Jersey flood my ear with legalese and become infuriated when I didn’t comprehend; a woman from South Carolina off-handedly stated that she had a third-degree murder charge against her, and possibly burglary, she couldn’t recall. I was thrown smack in the middle of callers’ intimate drama and learning more about the different people of this country then I ever would have by meeting them in person.

You see, I’m a shy person by nature but at work I suddenly had no choice other than to converse with everyone. I met a 78-year-old Arizonian woman who had been trying for a month to track down a lawyer that had previously worked with. “Do you know where I finally found him? It was through a Native American listing. I like the Indians. You know, of all the minorities they have been the most screwed over! So I donate a lotta money to ’em.” Another moment I remember fondly is when learned what a roustabout was by chatting to an ex-oil rig worker in the South. It probably took me about five minutes to unravel it from his Texan tongue, but now I’ll never forget that he worked out at sea doing odd jobs on the rig, risking his life by exposing himself to asbestos. Then there was the day-to-day joy of Southern Hospitality in the form of a sweet young woman wishing me a happy weekend, and the inspiring entrepreneur spirit in twenty-year old men seeking patents for their new tech businesses in California.

In my head there gradually formed a matrix of United States caricatures and truisms: No one lives in Montana, as I NEVER received calls from area code 406. People from New Jersey are ass-holes, but usually whip smart. People from New York are always in a hurry, no matter what. All old women think the world revolves around them and their needs must be met immediately. Children as young as four can use telephones to call their moms at work, and often do. There are a lot of people getting divorced in this country. There are a lot of lovely immigrants who just want their visas in order. When someone from the East Coast begins their sentence with, “Hey, how you doin’” this is not an invitation to actually respond, they are going to keep talking. Middle-aged men from Texas yell, old men from Texas mumble in hushed, incoherent tones. People from the West Coast don’t take calls after 5pm and are often out of the office for yoga. People on the East coast answer their cell phones until 8pm, and are almost always in the office. What struck me the most was how much I enjoyed the rare call from people in the Pacific North West. They took the time to chat with me and appreciated when I asked them how their day was. People in Jersey would get huffy like I was wasting their time. I also related to the responses of my home town locals. There was no need to pretend that I was used to six feet of snow in the winter, or that I was a construe of buffalo meat. It was a relief to say, “Yeah, it’s still raining, but I love it!” and “Have you tried that vegan restaurant yet?” To take an actual trip around the country and see how these people act in real life will be great when I have the funds. In the meantime, I learned I’m an Oregonian and a Portlander by conscious choice, not just birth. This is where I feel impassioned to stake my claim, the venue where I can vocalize my citizen concerns to like-minded individuals. I realized how much I value state’s rights. Americans are all so unique that its impossible to group us all together and get us to vote alike. This isn’t to say I’m pro “States Rights” as defined by radical conservatives or Tea Partiers. I’m just happy that I don’t get calls from Romney for President on my cell phone like people in the Red states do.